School is just getting under way and with everyone leading such busy and hectic lives, I felt compelled to write this regarding an event that is scheduled to take place on 6:30-8:30 p.m. Sept. 25. On that day, Portage Northern High School will be holding an parent night on two important topics: cyber bullying and social media and suicide prevention.

Like many of you, seven years ago, I too was getting my children ready for school, rushing around town to pick up school supplies and new lunch boxes. I had one daughter entering 10th grade, another daughter entering eighth grade, a son entering fifth grade, and a 3-year old son at home. Never in my scariest of dreams could I have ever imagined that within 90 days from the first day of school, my oldest daughter Kristina, only 15 at the time, would be dead by suicide.

Shortly after Kristina’s death, and at my request, her story ran in the Gazette, along with information on the warning signs of suicide. I also penned several viewpoint articles, each one written as I learned more and more about the factors that had contributed to her death. You see my daughter’s suicide was a consequence of depression spurred on, at least in part, by bullying.

There are so many things I know now, that I wish I’d known then. If I could build a time machine and go back, I’d rewrite history so that there was a lecture at the beginning of the school year expounding on the signs and symptoms of depression associated with bullying and suicide. That way, when my daughter told me she couldn’t concentrate, that it took her an hour to read a single page, and that she had stomach aches and headaches, I would have understood what all of that really meant.

When I received the letter detailing the upcoming PNHS event, I was both excited and scared. Excited, because this event is like a time machine that can change the course of events. Scared, because I know that many people won’t see it as such, either because their lives are too busy or because they think the unthinkable can’t happen. Well, I’m here to tell you that it can happen.

We take our children by the hand when they are young so they don’t run across the street. We care for them and we worry about them constantly, but we never really think that one day they might just not be there in the morning. I can say with brutal honesty that the day my daughter died, our whole family died. And although it’s been seven years, to us it was but a mere seven seconds ago. My family can never wake up from this nightmare.

Despite all of my wishful thinking, the fact is that it’s impossible for me to build a time machine, so I can’t rewrite our history. However, it is quite possible for each of you to still write yours. The way I see it, the informational parent night at PNHS is your opportunity to change your future. I hope you see it that way too. Suicide is preventable.